This invention relates to resilient fastening clips and more particularly to a one-piece edge attachment resilient fastening clip arrangement for securing, in a flush manner, a plastic panel to a sheet metal vehicle body panel while eliminating fasteners in the panel styling surfaces.
The prior art is replete with resilient metal clip fastening or retaining arrangements. The U.S. Pat. No. 4,729,706 issued Mar. 8, 1988 to Peterson et al. discloses a fastener clip having two legs adapted to be pushed onto an edge of sheet materials of varying thicknesses. The clip first leg has a U-shaped elongated tongue cut from it and bent towards the second leg to fictionally engage a sheet material disposed between the two legs while the second leg has an integral threaded barrel for receiving a bolt. The U-shaped tongue is formed with offset bends to allow the tongue to yield when the clip is mounted on a thicker sheet material.
The following is a list of patents disclosing various types of resilient fastener clip arrangements; U.S. Pat. No. 1,930,187 issued Oct. 10, 1933 to A. F. Abroanske; U.S. Pat. No. 2,654,411 issued Oct. 6, 1953 to W. A. Bedford, Jr.; U.S. Pat. No. 2,748,906 issued Jun. 5, 1956 to L. H. Flora; U.S. Pat. No. 2,781,073 issued Feb. 12, 1957 to W. L. Trafton; U.S. Pat. No. 2,824,465 issued Feb. 25, 1958 to J. T. Riley, Jr.; and U.S. Pat. No. 3,463,432 issued Aug. 26, 1969 to W. F. Ptak.